SUMMARY: The National Security Agency contractor accused of mishandling massive amounts of classified data has been deemed a flight risk. In August, Harold Martin was arrested at his home in Maryland, where the equivalent of half a billion pages of documents and electronic data was found, some allegedly taken from NSA headquarters. William Brangham speaks with Matt Apuzzo of The New York Times for more.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):A judge ruled today that a Maryland man accused of stealing massive amounts of information from the National Security Agency was a flight risk and will remain in federal custody.

William Brangham has the story.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): This past August, Harold Martin III was arrested at his home in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. In his house, investigators discovered the equivalent of half-a-billion pages of documents and electronic data, some allegedly taken from the NSA's headquarters at nearby Fort Meade.

Among the documents were ones marked top-secret and also tools used by the NSA to hack into the computer networks of foreign governments.

Joining me now for more on this case is Matt Apuzzo, who's been covering this story for The New York Times.

Matt Apuzzo, welcome.

I wonder if you would just start off by laying out the case against this gentleman, and what is his defense?

MATT APUZZO, The New York Times: Well, I mean, what is fascinating is there is the case that's been brought.

And the case that's been brought, as you said, is; hey, this guy had terabytes, billions of pages of documents in his house, in his shed, in the back seat of his car, in the trunk of his car, and, obviously, you're not supposed to do that. So, there is that case.

But then there is this other case that's kind of looming over all this, and the question is, is he the guy who, not too long ago, facilitated the release of NSA documents, basically for ransom, put them up for sale online? These were hacking tools, the way the government, the United States government, hacks into other countries and businesses and whatnot?

And so that's really what's going on here, is, there's, OK, he mishandled classified information. He has basically admitted that. But is he the guy, is he part of some network that's putting information up for sale?

About Me

I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.

THE RESISTANCE

*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.

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